


Cowboys Have Fangs Too

by pastiche_pen



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Dress Up, F/M, Historical, Identity Issues, how they got together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-07
Updated: 2010-02-07
Packaged: 2017-12-29 19:24:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastiche_pen/pseuds/pastiche_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you’re a Cullen, you’re supposed to be a nice vampire. You’re not supposed to want to kill librarians—or drink the drill team—or have a map of scars. And you're certainly not supposed to want to exsanguinate Edward's human. </p><p>Aw, hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Copyright: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. I play with her characters in an inappropriate fashion._
> 
> This is my story for the FandomGivesBack.
> 
>  **Bunnyslippersrok** **Prompt** : Since Jasper's abilities involve other's feelings, explore his impressions of Edward as he fell in love with Bella. A little lemon twist would be appreciated. :) Pet peeves - pixie Alice and the word _feral_.
> 
>  **The Result. Long Summary:** When you're a Cullen, you're supposed to be a _nice_ vampire. You're not supposed to want to kill the librarian—or drink the drill team. You're not supposed to be a map of scars, and you are certainly not supposed to want to exsanguinate Edward's human. _Aw, hell_. Canon.
> 
> This plot is non-linear. It hops all over the place. Tone-wise, this is like _Candle_ , except that Jasper isn't as conscientious as Edward, and there's more sex, more violence, dark themes, and the usual humor (because I couldn't resist the occasional poke at Edward here or there...). Also, this Jasper, unlike _Candle_ 's Texsper, does not have a noticeable Texan drawl, cuz it'd be canon _._
> 
>  **Thank you's to** : houroflead, americnxidiot (for lending their thoughts) and to **ElleCC** for the beta, _especially_ since I made her read Alice/Jasper... Also, you should check out the Jasper collab that she's doing with La Vie Pastiche _The First Breath_. Go. Read.
> 
> * * *

**v^v^v**

**Cowboys Have Fangs, Too**

**Part 1.**

**^v^v^v^**

 

Jasper entered the law office as he always did.

Without a sound.

The room felt sparse, furnished with olive lobby chairs and a wholesale oak desk. On the center of the desk was a slide-in black nameplate, with white letters spelling out, "Jason Jenks, Esq." The man himself was seated in the barrelback leather chair, shuffling through a stack of official-looking papers . At the sound of the door clicking shut behind Jasper, Jenks glanced up with a frown—only to sputter and jerk back.

"Y-You look w-w-well, Mr. J-Jasper. How nice to see you. Didn't expect you—today."

"I decided to drop by."

Jenks bobbed his head like a rag doll, smiling too wide. Dots of perspiration started forming on his temples and his human pulse went from calm to racing. But more than anything, there was the heady aroma of his blood. The scent slithered through Jasper's nostrils and raked down his throat, and yet… his nostrils flared again—but this time with distaste—Jenks's blood smelled _polluted_. Jasper idly wondered if he was on some sort of medication. Probably anti-anxiety pills.

Jasper forced himself to keep a straight face. This was business.

"Please. Take a seat. I insist." Mr. Jenks gestured at the chair before his desk. He did this every time they met, even though he knew Jasper would not take the seat.

In ten years, he never had.

Jasper gave a curt wave of dismissal before asking, "Did you get the papers ready? I'll be adding the pictures myself."

"I have them prepared." Jenks stood, jerking as he pushed out of his seat. When he turned, his posture was slanted, and Jasper could feel both the tingle of relief and the clench of apprehension as Jenks found his back to Jasper.

Jenks reached for the print of Van Gogh's _Sunflowers_ that hung crooked on the wall, fingering the frame before pushing the print to the side to reveal a vault. With practiced fingers, Jenks spun the dial. He managed to fuck the code up the first time and had to redo it, but he got it on the second. Then he reached into the black cube and pulled out a thick envelope.

"This is it." Jenks's hand shook as he held out the envelope for Jasper to take.

Jasper took it, slit it with his nail, and began flipping through the pages thick with gold seals and notary stamps. Forged birth certificates, a marriage license, school records, and a medical license— he stopped when he read through that document. He looked down on the anxious lawyer. "Carlisle's medical license—you put down Yale. We used Yale the last time."

Mr. Jenks paled to an impossible shade of white.

"I don't think I need to repeat to you how dangerous these errors could be—for my family—and... for _you_ ," Jasper added with a glare.

"I had been meaning to give the documents an additional review before Monday. They will be fixed," Mr. Jenks's insisted.

Jasper made no response, but glanced over the final documents, drivers' licenses and passports, before stuffing them back in the envelope. "You will have the error remedied by Monday."

"Certainly. My deepest apologies for your inconvenience—for my error. I'll have it fixed by tomorrow, should you wish to stop by. I'm so very, very—"

"Monday," Jasper finished, and with that final pronouncement, Jasper tossed a fat envelope onto the table and felt Jenks's fear replaced by the filter of greed. "The rest will be yours on Monday." Then Jasper swept out of the room.

As he pushed out of the office doors and made his way into the parking lot, Jasper considered that he probably needed an outlet for his aggressions.

He hadn't killed anyone in ages.

v^v^v

When he wasn't angry back then, he was numb.

No other sentiment stuck.

He remembered one evening when he was with Maria. She had followed him out there and now was throwing rocks while he sat, hands on his knees and doing nothing.

She asked him, "What is it?"

Jasper didn't answer. He kept on doing what he was doing—nothing.

She hit his arm.

He turned toward her. He shook his head.

"What is it?" she demanded again.

He mustered a wave of calm, sending the numbing cool over both of them, but his lips did not move.

He felt her anger brewing then, smacking against the stretch of calm. Maria had apparently reached her limit. She stood. She shoved at his shoulder and screeched, "It's _not_ nothing. You don't do anything anymore. You don't help plan any missions. You don't even fucking care if the newborns rip each other's heads off—so tell me. What is it? _Ask_ me for more! I will give it to you—you know I'd give you anything. _Tell me_ what you need."

Jasper watched her, surprised by her sincerity, so he replied, "Sorry... I'm not trying to be a problem—I don't need _anything_..." He paused when her expression remained furious, before adding, "It's not like that."

"Well, explain 'what is it like' to me then," she growled in derision.

Jasper was quiet for some length.

He and Maria sat on a desert plain. Canyons started in the west—but otherwise, dried brush and cold, red earth surrounded them. The wind brushed through at odd intervals, and at the midnight hour, the waning moon frowned down on them.

"I don't know," he finally whispered.

In the next moment, a forceful wind swept up, causing bits of loose sand and dead plant matter to smack at their faces. One second she was there, and in the next, Maria raced away with the punch of wind, her back straight as an arrow and fury pacing her steps. She blurred into the west, heading toward their coven.

The next week, Jasper let the winds take him north.

v^v^v

It came as a shock to him, some three odd decades later, that his own form of peace appeared as a small woman who stood at the mighty height of his nipples. Her hair was boy-short which only made her big eyes seem all the more huge, and most mysterious of all was their strange golden color.

The only word that Jasper could draw up to fit her was... _kinetic._

When Jasper had first begun to understand his power—his ability to read the emotions of others—he'd had a hard time describing it, even when they'd prodded him to explain.

"Joy feels like rose petals stretched across the face and tickling rain drops and being suffocated by a woman's breasts? Surprise is a door just flung open?"

Sometimes those descriptions fit. Sometimes they didn't. He'd skipped around at the time, trying to find different ways of categorizing and explaining his world to others. He'd been all about color when they'd conquered Monterrey. When he almost died at the hands of two newborns, he'd taken to describing emotions as the weather, seasons, and climates as if lightning bolts could match the new mess of crackled scars down his neck. At some point, some friend had slid Mendeleev into his hands, and then Jasper had taken to describing emotions in terms of the Periodic Table. Rage, he thought, was the alkalis, dropped in water and crackling and spitting off pieces until nothing else remained. Gold was confidence, heavy, unwavering, and luminescent. Calm was like noble gases—helium or neon—ready to be interrupted or absorbed by anything.

He'd dropped that analogy a decade later. Too many variables.

But eventually he'd dropped everything in that life.

He wanted to make it all stop. Or so he thought.

 _Kinetic_ Alice. The term fit her.

Alice had shown him that you didn't need to make it stop. You didn't even have to "accept" it or "let it in." At first, he'd told her she was like a pretzel. Then, a silver serpent in a sieve.

She didn't like that.

Being defined.

"We define our world," she said. "We define each other."

He tried to argue with her, but she didn't let him. She threw him down onto the bed with a splintering of oak rails.

v^v^v

Though Jasper didn't realize it at the time, the day that Bella Swan graced Edward's Biology class was the day that Jasper and Emmett's five decades long bet came to an end.

Edward, as fate would have it, was not gay.

Jasper and Emmett had maintained a rather contentious debate on the topic since Jasper had first moved in.

" _Gay_ , dude. So, gay."

"I'm not so sure, Em..." Decades had gone by, and Jasper was still mostly convinced that Edward was as repressed as a boulder.

"I mean, come on, he could have gone for Rose when she was first changed—and _he didn't_ ," Emmett argued.

While Jasper tended to side with Edward on this, Jasper wasn't about to argue with a man about the merits of his wife. Points like, "Then again, she murdered her ex-fiancée in a wedding dress—and she's spent the next twenty weddings with you trying to wash off the grime," or, "She feels the happiest and the angriest when she looks in a mirror," were not the bits you said to Emmett if you wanted to keep your under-gears. Moreover, if Jasper were honest with himself, he would have to admit that part of his reticence with Rosalie came from the ways in which she reminded him of Maria. Rosalie was strong and forthright—which Jasper could admire—but Jasper was tired of strength.

"It's just tough to tell with Edward," Jasper explained. "He wrestles a woody when he plays the piano on occasion—but I was never sure if he was getting off on Bach, God, or Audrey Hepburn."

Emmett's eyes brightened. "Audrey Hepburn is _way_ boyish! Like _nothing_ in the boob department."

"Audrey Hepburn looks like Alice," Jasper muttered with a scowl.

"Duh—man—but Alice is a _girl_."

Jasper chose not to continue the conversation.

v^v^v

The first time he and Alice had started their "game" was the day she picked up a hat.

They were walking through the flea market in Philadelphia when some sundry object among the laden booths caught Alice's attention. Jasper followed her mindlessly as she had skipped over, because this was typical Alice behavior. He grinned though when he saw her prey: a crisp, white Red Cross nurse cap. She snatched it off the table and slipped it on, tucking loose strands beneath the white lining, before turning about to model for Jasper.

He'd expected cute or adorable—for such words practically defined Alice—but what he got was sassy and... sexy. The crisp white looked so _official_ next to her angelic pallor.

Watching him, Alice gasped, her eyes clouding over with some future vision, and he felt desire trickle down her sides.

Her face had twisted into a wicked grin, and then she had turned back to the booth.

"I'll take this one, please." She took off the cap and held it up.

v^v^v

Alice had insisted that they make use of a downtown doctor's office. Jasper was to change into a patient's hospital frock before finding a room. She gave it to him in a box.

"Which room?"

"Just pick one. I'll know."

Jasper shook his head at that, even as he agreed.

Naturally, no one was there at nine o'clock, and evading security was smooth sailing.

He went in first. The smells of isopropyl alcohol, ether, and gauze hit him first—and too, the lingering scent of dried up, disinfected blood. Otherwise, everything was insistently dark wood or beige plastic.

He chose the room second to last from the end of the hall. He chose it first because it had no windows and second because it had the longest distance from the doorway to the patient's table. He stripped out of his clothes and pulled on the patient's gown. It was a bit tight across the shoulders as he pulled it on, and he had to be careful not to tear the fabric.

He waited.

He heard it ten minutes later when the front door of the building opened, and then there was the rush of fleet footfalls up the stairwell and down the hall. Closer and closer.

Alice appeared in the doorway in a conservative nurse's uniform. White buttons all the way to the neck. He could see the pins that held her cap firmly in place and then the tiny red cross, a scarlet target.

"What seems to be your ailment, Sir?" Alice walked up to him.

"My heart. It's broken." Jasper fake-coughed as he patted his chest.

Alice almost failed to restrain a smirk before she took on a severe expression. "Do be professional, Sir. I am a professional, and I expect to be treated with every respect." She glared until Jasper acquiesced with a nod. "Well, I'll need to check your vitals," she informed him in a soft voice of authority.

"Vital areas," Jasper leered.

Alice smacked him in the chest so that he fell back on to the desk. "My apologies if I spoke with any lack of clarity, Sir, but I do believe I said that I needed to check your vitals, as in I'm going to shove this thermometer either down your throat or up your ass, and your good behavior will undoubtedly influence my decision."

"Be my guest," Jasper grinned through his words.

Alice kept her face straight and disapproving, even as he felt...

_Lust._

"Open your mouth," she commanded.

Jasper feigned meekness as he parted his lips.

"Tongue out," Alice tutted.

He curled out his tongue.

She slid the thermometer onto it.

They both watched the red line sink lower instead of rise higher.

"Oh, that is not good," Alice murmured.

"I'm cold," Jasper concluded helpfully. "Maybe I need to be warmed up?"

"No, blockhead. The thermometer is broken."

"I see."

"And the doctor is out. I'll have to check for hypertension. _Arm_ ," she commanded.

He extended his arm.

She let her eyes sweep down it, before taking the cuff of the sphygmomanometer and wrapping it around his upper arm. She pumped it up hard, almost to the point that he thought the small bag might pop, but then she relinquished her efforts, picking up the stethoscope and holding it at the crease in the skin as she tried to find his vein.

"Oh my," Alice murmured.

"Something wrong?"

"These instruments are broken."

"Are you sure they're broken?" Jasper asked.

Alice rolled her eyes. "Raise your chin."

He did. He heard the counter creak as she pressed down with her palm press against it to steady herself as she stretched to touch his skin. He felt her breath ghost along his neck. Her index and middle fingers started at the nape of his neck and moved upward, finger by finger, as if crawling. They stopped at the pulse point. Both he and Alice waited. Jasper felt his prick hardening under the gown.

"Nothing," she whispered.

"It can't be nothing," Jasper replied. He sent a prickle of desire at her.

He noticed the uptake in her breath when she announced, "You don't have a pulse."

"You said your instruments are broken." He sent another wave of desire up her spine.

"But my fingers can't be broken," she countered, her breathing elevated.

He grabbed her hand, before she could pull it back. "Let me see," he insisted.

She frowned at him, chin drawing up.

He smiled back, and then he grabbed her hand and sucked her fingers into his mouth.

Alice squealed and tried to get away, but Jasper caught her waist and pulled her back towards him. "What are you doing?" she demanded. A curl came loose from under her cap.

"Hrmyrmingers," Jasper garbled around her fingers.

She tried to jerk her hand back again, but Jasper used the opportunity to lift her completely on top of him.

"This, Sir, is a violation of every hospital procedure in the b—"

But then her lecture cut off with a gasp.

Because Jasper's finger were under the white hem of her uniform, guided by the curve of her thigh and up and into the crease between her legs. His nails were catching on embroidered lace as his hand pressed. His fingers searched the curls beneath. The moist, sweet tang of venom caught the air when the fabric lifted.

"Sir..." she whined with a weak protest.

"I think I'll die without you," Jasper answered with a grin, his fingers never stopping.

"I think you're already dead," she growled back—but the threat held no weight with her eyes unable to focus.

"As long as I make you feel alive first." And then he rolled her underneath him.

"What are you...?"

"I have another problem, my adorable nurse."

"What's that?" she gave a wry reply.

"You'll have to examine it." He took her hand and guided it beneath his gown, until her fingers were sliding down his prick, and the sensation of it made him shiver and clench.

"Oh." Alice's eyes were wide.

"It's a problem, isn't it?"

"A hard problem," she replied.

Jasper snorted, but then gasped as Alice gripped him firmly. "I'm supposed to be a good nurse," Alice whispered, lifting up so that she could spread her legs on either side of him.

Jasper leaned back to gape at the view. Her legs were just so _wide open_. There was only creamy white skin and lace beneath the starched cotton of the dress. Therefore, he didn't hesitate. He grabbed the lace material and ripped, sending the tatters over his shoulder, and then Alice's hands were lifting up the material of his gown, and there was nothing in the way.

He aligned them. He pushed in.

Alice gasped. Her head fell back, and her ass clenched against his palm.

"I'll be sure to fill out the patient satisfaction survey," Jasper informed her, and then he started thrusting.

v^v^v

Normally, Jasper was the weak one. He was the one interested in all of the various ways to guzzle cheerleaders and exsanguinate chess club boys. He was the one with Edward meddling the most in his mind and with Alice most watching his future. He was the one whose hunting Esme kept calendar charts of.

That was until Edward up and fled off to Alaska— _because he wanted to drink the new girl._

Jasper had a good laugh over that one.

Until Alice hit him.

"She's important."

"All right."

"I see things. _She is_."

"Sure thing?"

Alice grabbed both sides of his face and looked into his eyes. He felt the dual strings of doubt and hope emanating from her. She spoke in a soft tone, "I'm not ready to say why yet—it's not clear yet—and I don't want to—just in case—I don't want to say it—because it might—"

"Jinx?" Jasper teased.

Alice squinted her eyebrows. "Perhaps. We'll see."

"You mean, _you_ will see."

"Yes." She smiled back.

v^v^v

The first time that Jasper fought a newborn, he was one himself.

Maria whispered in his hear beforehand, "Use those pretty little tricks of yours. You're so good with them."

Jasper leaned back into her as she spoke. Her body felt curved and soft against his spine. The way her breath tickled his ear made him forget about the forthcoming fight and focus on the multitude of magical ways in which she could move her hips.

"Focus, Jasper. You want your reward." She breathed against his ear again. Jasper's own lust mixed with hers, even as he felt Maria's focus and anticipation. She wanted him to fight, and she also wanted him to win.

Jasper's eyes seized on his opponent. She was three inches shorter than he was. She had long hair that was knotted and powdered gray with dirt from her confinement in the cavern cellar. When her eyes caught Jasper's, she hissed.

"Nettie thought she might possess a talent—but she didn't. I think Nettie was jealous that I had found you, but there's nothing special about this one. She's not special. Not like you."

This time Jasper felt the spike of anger from the newborn at Maria's words. The newborn's snarl seemed to shoot across the room like an arrow—straight at Maria. Jasper, hackles raised, felt the fury pound across his chest. He took a defensive position in front of Maria, half-crouched with eyes focused on the bloody irises on the other opposite side of the room.

"Time to toss the dice," Maria declared in a low tone, and then Jasper heard her steps as both she and Nettie backed away in unison, leaving Jasper and his opponent in taut stances in the center.

Jasper took a long breath—not because he needed the oxygen, but because he needed to steady himself. He needed the control. Across from him, the newborn's chest moved up and down as she panted and paced in front of Jasper. She was edging right, left. Left then right. Her movements were quick but defensive. As much as she wanted to attack first, she was trying to restrain herself. She knew Jasper had the advantage.

_Screw that._

Jasper took the anger that he'd been holding in the barrel of his chest, and he unleashed it. He aimed it like a whip and snapped the string of it at her.

She acted as he'd expected.

There was a screeching snarl, and she lunged.

He saw her mouth open: her teeth, white and glistening and at an angle that aimed for his neck. Her hair jetted back behind her and her fingers spread wide to catch like claws, but he dropped to his knees and rolled forward across the rock floor. By the time she hit the opposite wall—Jasper had already pivoted and stood.

She jumped at the same time that he twisted away, and as her hair snapped around, he caught it in his fist, yanking her back toward him, caging her between his arms and holding her there.

Like a serpent, he began to squeeze. She struggled, and she was strong, almost jarring Jasper's arms away, but he was just as strong—and _talented_. Even as he crushed the structure of her arms and chest, causing gruff, metallic snaps to jar the room, he sent wave after wave of defeat through her, repeating in his head: _You will lose. You lose. You've lost. The reward is mine._ He focused on her defeat even as he felt her terror begin to affect him, too—even as he began to shake from the force of it.

When a final snap screeched through the room, her head—which had been bent away from him—rolled back, and he caught it with his teeth, ripping it off with a final spray of stinking venom.

He chucked the body on the floor. He backed away.

Maria and Nettie stood in the far corner of the room. Nettie's jaw was set, but Maria—Maria's face was spread in a full grin.

Wiping the excess venom onto his pants pockets, he walked towards them.

"Very well, then," Nettie said, and then she spun on her heel and left.

Jasper bristled at her dismissal, but Maria's hand quickly began rubbing his shoulder. "Don't mind her, _mi amor_. You did perfectly. She's just disappointed. Also, the loser has to clean up the mess." Maria swung a haughty gesture toward the remains of the newborn. "She hates that."

Jasper leaned into her once again, attempting to find solace in her arms.

But Maria pushed him away. "Not that yet," she snapped. "First, your reward." She grabbed his hand then and pulled him, leading him upwards through the caverns and closer to the surface. He could feel the air and pressure changing as they moved. Maria stopped before a familiar antechamber, but Jasper pushed passed her, and she let him go.

He pushed past her, because he could hear it whimpering. He could smell the sweet liquid leaking out. The want of it sent spasms down his throat. Through the dark, he saw it, arms wrapped around knees and handkerchief draped over the brow, covering the eyes.

He couldn't have stopped himself if he wanted to. He threw himself at it.

There was the scream. The terror. The warm, soft, breakable body thrashing against his own as his teeth sliced into the throat.

But mostly, there was the mind-numbing sweetness of blood coating his throat.

"Your reward," he heard Maria whisper.

v^v^v

After Edward returned from Alaska, the family was wary, but as irony would have it—they were wary for the wrong reason.

When Alice told him that Edward was going to make it through Biology on that first day back, Jasper was an inch or three disappointed. In fact, he was so disappointed, he didn't pay all that much attention to Alice. He felt her curiosity, her wonder, even her mind entering its analytical state—but he didn't pay her much heed. Instead, he spent the greater part of the evening with Emmett as they negotiated and altered the odds on Edward eating the new girl.

Which was stupid. Because the next morning, Edward had to go play the hero and save her, exposing them all.

v^v^v

Cullen family dinnertime was never a blessed event—mostly because they never ate dinner there (though Jasper had suggested more than once that they give it a whirl). The family used the table for "meetings"—meetings so lacking in any form of organization or strategy that they were mostly reminiscent of a ragtag guerrilla war council.

Jasper had spent the greater part of the school day working on his end of the strategy. He had his mission: protect Alice and his family. Since Edward was clearly hung up on this, Jasper would have to slice through the bullshit and handle it. He'd wait for tomorrow. The girl would come home while her father was still at work. She'd be alone. He'd make it quick. He could stage it according to police procedure. No fingerprints. He'd have to make it look brutal, regardless of how fast he drained her. The body would give no signs as to the nature of its demise.

When he entered the dining room, Rosalie was there first. She was fuming, her anger burning like a flame in the corner of the room. It wasn't all that impressive, Jasper considered. If Carlisle said "no," then the flame would go out. "Poof" with a sizzling end. Rosalie saw Carlisle as the leader, but Jasper did not—especially if it compromised the safety of Alice.

Nevertheless, Rosalie was the only one in the room with any particular commitment to his cause, so Jasper went and stood at her side, ignoring Edward's irritation at his choice.

When Alice came in, Jasper expected her to come to his side, but instead her emotions were a blur, lost to some distant focus, and she slid into the seat next to Esme.

The proceedings began with Edward pulling his usual _it's-all-my-fault_ , which was especially annoying to Jasper, considering he could feel that Edward _meant_ every grain of his apology. Then Rosalie finally asked the real question. "Are you going to fix it?"

Edward shook his head. "Not the way you mean. I'm willing to leave now, if that makes things better."

Jasper felt the collective swell of frustration at Edward's words, mostly because no one—not even Emmett—would have bet that Edward would have reacted any other way, and yet...

Esme freaked out. Carlisle freaked out.

Rosalie, per usual, resorted to violence again. She smacked her palm down upon the table with a loud bang. "We can't allow a human a chance to say anything. Carlisle, you must see that. Even if we decided to all disappear, it's not safe to leave stories behind us. We live so differently from the rest of our kind—you know there are those who would love an excuse to point fingers. We have to be more careful than anyone else!"

Edward argued back, but Jasper had heard enough. Edward would not see reason, and Rosalie was more right than even she knew. They needed to be more careful. They were too talented. They were too large. They were too powerful—even as vegetarian, do-gooder pacifists.

If there had ever been two rainbow-peace sign-waving Pollyanna-ish vampires, their names were Carlisle and Edward, as far as Jasper was concerned. Their monkish view of the world was fine. It was clean and neat—but it only worked if someone stood up and defended it. Having a _family_ instead of a _coven_ was a privilege to Jasper—something to be earned—but he wasn't going to be a fool about it.

The modern idea that "violence solves nothing" was a farce. Every serious study of history showed that while might did not equal moral rightness, it certainly equaled the right to tell people what the fuck to do. It worked. Roman armies had rough-hewn the face of Europe, giving way to the philosophical glory of _Pax Romana_ —before the Empire's excess cracked her knees with her own weight. Hirohito only surrendered when the second atom bomb blasted away Japan's doorstep. As, far as Jasper was concerned, a big stick should be the cornerstone of the national business plan. For his bit, he would never let fear of violence stop him from protecting his own. He wouldn't let weakness ruin the family. Alice wanted this family, and if Jasper were honest with himself, it was what he wanted, too. Therefore, he would defend it.

It was unfortunate, but the girl would have to die.

Jasper was lost to his thoughts when Edward's voice called him back to the room. "Jasper," Edward called.

Jasper looked up, gazed at Edward and felt his reproach.

"She won't pay for my mistake. I won't allow that," Edward insisted.

Jasper sent circling flows of calm at him. Edward was being emotional when he should be logical, smart. Jasper countered, "She benefits from it, then? She should have died today, Edward. I would only set that right."

"I will not allow it."

Jasper paused. He'd expected more whining, more self-loathing and _woe-is-me_ from Edward, but what he hadn't expected was Edward's determination. Regardless, Jasper wouldn't stand for it. "I won't let Alice live in danger, even a slight danger. You don't feel about anyone the way I feel about her, Edward, and you haven't lived through what I've lived through, whether you've seen my memories or not. You don't understand."

But Edward didn't listen. Jasper could feel him tossing aside Jasper's arguments without a second thought.

Edward just repeated himself, and then they were standing there, staring at each other.

The stalemate was broken by Alice.

It wasn't just her words, though his jaw dropped when she told him, "I'm going to love her someday, Jazz. I'll be very put out with you if you don't let her be." What it really was, was Edward's reaction.

Jasper expected him to calm down at Alice's intervention, but quite the opposite occurred. Edward was shaking his head, trembling with eyes squeezed shut, disbelief and anxiety seizing hold of him, while Alice's eyes were distant but tranquil. She was... hopeful. Happy.

The next minute happened in an emotional blur for Jasper. Alice insisting. Edward denying. Esme happy as a clam. Rosalie pissed. Emmett confused.

As it always did, though, it ended with Edward storming out of the room.

Then, silence.

"Is he really going to fall in love with her?" Jasper asked. He needed to be sure.

"More inevitable than the sun rising in the east," Alice replied through a wry smile.

"Well," Jasper nodded to himself, "I'll be..."

The room went silent again.

Until Jasper's eyes caught Emmett's. They both grinned.

Jasper narrowed his eyes at his brother. "You owe me at least a grand on that bet."

"A _grand_?"

"Interest."

Shaking his head, Emmett laughed.

v^v^v

Alice, Jasper, Emmett, and Rosalie, despite their _we-must-tolerate-the-high-school-children_ attitude, had never been more scintillated by the happenings in the cafeteria than they were on the day when Edward decided to publicly converse with Bella Swan. Though their lunch trays sat in front of them as props and the grating screech of Lauren Mallory's laugh gave weight to Jasper's contention that _certain_ members of humanity had not earned their right to breathe, the crew of siblings found themselves lost to the scene playing out before their eyes.

Edward was _flirting_.

With the girl he'd wanted to drain dry no less than two months before.

The Cullens were struck dumb by it—and they were not the only ones. Despite the roar of laughter and gossip and clatter, students kept casting furtive looks at the pair seated at the back table. Jasper could feel curiosity, jealousy, and confusion snapping like corn in the popper.

Yet Edward and Bella did not seem to notice—or rather—Edward noticed, but for once in his life, it appeared that Edward had forsaken the role of telepathic curmudgeon for that of the blithe Romeo. Jasper felt him as a bright spot in the room: _happy_. The thoughts of the room hit him and bounced right off, almost as if he was behind a shield.

It gave Jasper pause. He even smiled. Then, his eyes slid to Alice.

She was looking as smug as she felt.

v^v^v

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**v^v^v**

**Cowboys Have Fangs, Too**

**Part 2.**

**^v^v^v^**

 

Bella Swan was not what Jasper expected. As in, she was not even in the _universe_ of the image that Jasper had conjured for Edward's mate. First of all, there was nothing particularly striking about her, though she was far from ugly. She wasn't fat. She didn't have any odd features, e.g., a puckered scar, a bulbous chin, buggy eyes, or weird moles. It was just that there was nothing distinctive about her at all. After so many years of feeling Edward's maudlin solitude, Jasper realized he'd been expecting someone unearthly to sweep his brother off his feet, a woman reminiscent of Helen of Troy—or _Henry_ of Troy, as he and Emmett had joked—but upon seeing Bella Swan, Jasper couldn't help but feel a touch _gypped_.

"He can't hear her," Alice reminded him. "She's a puzzle to him."

Jasper shrugged. "It explains the interest, not the infatuation."

"You can't explain love and relationships—not that way."

"I've reached the conclusion that you can't explain love at all," Jasper murmured, brushing some dust particles off his sleeve.

"If anyone would know..." she trailed off, eying him at a slant." How do you explain us?"

Jasper kissed her forehead. "You put up with me, and I put up with your shopping."

Alice laughed before straightening in her chair and pressing her lips together in small _moue_. "Speaking of which, I bought something..." As Jasper felt the sexual tilt of her emotions, he edged closer to her on the sofa. She picked up his hand and kissed the top of his knuckles, flashing him a smile that was anything but demure.

v^v^v

About a year after they found one another, there was an incident on a train.

They were seated in the first class cabin, the small room all to themselves. They'd chosen a lesser-used route for this purpose. Alice was wearing something pretty, a pale green dress with ruffles and sleeves cut just below the shoulder. Jasper was wearing a cream-colored seersucker suit, allegedly to handle the heat, but mostly, he thought, because Alice had clapped her hands and beamed at him when he'd finally agreed to put it on. He internally scoffed even as he smiled. Charisma was supposed to be _his_ talent.

The fact that they were on the train was also Alice's fault.

"Have you ever been on a train before?" she'd asked.

"No. Why would I?" Vampires could run much faster than a train.

Alice had frowned. "As a boy, were you impressed with steam locomotives?"

"I'm sure I was. I just don't remember."

She'd nodded, letting the topic go, but he could feel her longing curl around her, stinging and tight like barbed wire.

"Hey, none of that." He'd pulled her against him, kissing her temple. "Would you like to go on a train?"

Alice's expression had gone hazy in the same instant that she smiled, and then she'd replied, "Yes, I _will_ like that."

Thus, here they were. Jasper was seated in the corner by the window. Alice sat nestled in his side, gazing out the window and bouncing in her seat along with the train as they passed by dairy farms, orchards in bloom, and the occasional small town depot, while the iron machinery chugged and clanked beneath their feet.

Then Alice went quiet. Her eyes fogged in a blink, and then she turned to face the door. "Someone's coming," she whispered. She gripped his hand, a silent warning for him to prepare himself. Jasper took a long breath. Outside the cabin, Jasper heard a pair of footsteps halt, and then a polite knock rapped on the metal cabin door.

"Please, come on in," Alice called.

The door clicked, then pushed open, and then a freckled porter in a smart grey uniform stuck his head in.

"Apologies for the intrusion, sir—" and then the porter's gaze fell upon Alice. His eyes widened, lingering on her face for longer than Jasper's liking—even if the man wasn't feeling lust so much as awe.

Jasper cleared his throat.

The porter seemed to collect himself, then straightened back into his formal posture. "Ma'am," he continued, "would you care for any refreshment? We also provide complimentary hot towels to remove the dust of the journey, should you wish them."

He sounded too eager. Jasper continued to glower at him.

"No, thank you," Alice answered. "We're fine as is."

"Of course, ma'am, but if you'll be needing anything at all, then just—" Then he caught Jasper's expression. He gulped.

"We're fine," Jasper added.

The porter ducked his head as a show of submission before backing out of the door, and Jasper heard the intake of air as a passing fellow passenger avoided knocking into him by a hair. Finally, the door slid shut.

Alice turned to him with obvious slowness, her bottom lip jutting out as she gave him a look of total disapproval.

"He smelled good," Jasper explained.

He got an eye roll.

"He was a ginger. You know how I feel about gingers."

Alice leaned her head back against the wall, and he felt mischief replacing her former mood. "I like red hair," she insisted. "It's rare."

"Actually, I was going to say that gingers taste extra spicy, but as for _hair_ , I love your hair. I love you." He ran his fingers through her short almost-curls before letting his forehead fall to rest on the top of her head—but she shoved his face away.

"What would you say if...?" She examined his expression, and he could tell what she was doing. She was thinking of various pronouncements she could make right now and was testing possible outcomes.

"Ask it," he demanded, attempting to pull her face back to his.

She held back, this time with an ornery smile. "What would you say if I said that I _liked_ his uniform?" she asked, leaning back at an angle that arched her chest so that shadow beneath the crease in the ruffle seemed to elongate just so...

Jasper shrugged his shoulders with nonchalance. "You like uniforms. Period."

"Ooooh, but this one was special. That _smart_ grey. Those _glistening_ buttons. That silver whistle. Those white gloves... just imagine what those crisp, white gloves could do to a—"

"He had freckles."

"He did. God, _fuck_ , freckles," she mock-moaned.

"You're trying to provoke me."

"It's working." She laughed.

"It is." And then he pushed her down onto the bench. There was a groaning of wood as he pinned her. He was pretty sure Alice's dress was going to be stained with some of the finish.

"No!" Alice declared, shaking her head while laughing. He could feel her excitement and anticipation more than her desire. "Wait, one minute, please? I want to get something! _Please_ ," she urged.

With a sigh, Jasper leaned back, making a show of adjusting himself in his suit trousers as he sent Alice a small poke rich with his disappointment.

"I will be right back," she insisted, righting herself before standing. She gave her dress a playful swish, and then she opened and sailed through the cabin door.

Jasper leaned back, _frustrated_. He gave a glum look down at the bulge along his right thigh. "Sorry, there, ranger," he apologized. "She'll be back."

However, five minutes later Alice was not back.

The train was moving along the river now, and Jasper was finding the consistency of the mills, barges, and flat floodplains to be uninteresting, especially without Alice there to point out every detail to him with her guileless, big eyes and excessive gesticulations.

But then he heard the clop of footsteps down the hall. Alice did not clop. It was the porter—who stopped in front of the cabin door and knocked.

Jasper debated a minute before taking a breath of air and calling out, "Door's open."

The porter stuck his head in with a smile and the feeling of... anticipation—only to have his smile falter when he saw only Jasper in the room.

"Yes?" Jasper asked through his teeth.

"I came with tea service," he explained, and his freckled skin flushed—and Jasper had to close his eyes because he could almost taste the threads of blood running along those cheekbones. "You would like tea, yes?"

Jasper opened his mouth to respond, to say, "no," but then the porter took a step forward, and the train gave an unexpected jolt, which made the porter trip.

As the porter slipped, Jasper saw the tea pot on the tray begin to slide, rotate, and then—the porter tried to catch it—but—the hot liquid hit his hand, and Jasper could smell the effect on the skin, the mutilation of cells as the hot liquid scalded them.

Jasper was by the porter's side in the next moment. He had the tray out of the porter's fingers; the tin kettle and porcelain cups, stable on the bench. He had the towel pressed against the man's burnt hands. "There now," Jasper said—which was a mistake—because then he was out of air, and the man's neck was so close—that smell—and the man's breathing was already rapid from the adrenaline rush of the accident.

The porter did not say anything at first—he was focused on the pain—but as Jasper leaned in closer, he felt the man's sudden apprehension. He felt the porter's back tense.

"It's all right. I know it hurts," Jasper whispered, and then he was sending a wash of numbing, drowsy calm through the man.

"Thanks," the porter murmured. His eyes were fluttering, fighting against the effects of Jasper's emotional transfer, and then the porter started to sway.

Jasper grabbed him before he could slump back, but then the man's flushed neck was beneath him. Jasper could see the wiggle of his narrow Adam's apple, he could see throbbing from the main artery, and even more, he could feel the man's total, drowsy surrender.

Jasper's mouth flooded with venom; his nostrils flared.

"This won't hurt... too much," he added in a whisper.

He pressed his lips down, almost like a nuzzle—he just wanted to smell... But then his teeth touched and cut and were slicing through the layers of skin and flesh, and the rose of it touched his tongue, and his mind burst open, and it was over: the roll of soothing heat down his throat. The way the beating heart felt against his chest, pumping each gulp into him. The ways it bound his entire body and made him forget everything in the world.

It had been so long, and the sweetness was so much that he took in too much too fast. He half-choked, the blood spilling down his chin, even as he licked to catch every drop and drank in more, even as he and his prey slumped lower and lower to the floor as Jasper's desire to focus on anything as trivial as standing up on two legs gave way.

Her fleet footsteps registered three cars down.

He should have stopped then.

Instead, he sucked harder, even as his mind was reeling from what was to come.

The porter's heart stopped at the same second that the cabin door flew open.

Alice: gorgeous, furious.

She punched him. The blow sent him flying backwards. He gained his balance at the last second, avoiding what would have been a flight out of the window.

Then he looked at her. Felt her.

_Anger. Disappointment. Guilt._

"I didn't—"

Alice cut him off with a wave of her hand. She shook her head at him, her eyes squeezed shut. Her jaw set. "Just don't—don't say anything." She shook her head again, this time as if to clear her thoughts, and then she continued in a controlled tone. "We have to dispose of the body, check for possible risks. Then we'll jump ship. We'll have to find a place to..." she trailed off.

"I'll get us a hotel," Jasper whispered.

"No. You can't be around people. We'll have to start all over again—besides..." and here, her shoulders drooped. "Your eyes, Jasper. They're red. They won't be gold again for months." He nodded, standing silent, useless, and guilt-ridden because of what this meant. They'd have to put off their search. She wanted to follow her visions. They were supposed to be heading north. She'd last seen _them_ in the North. Now they would have to...

When Alice bent down to lift the corpse off the floor, Jasper took steps forward, but Alice shook her head at him again, her eyes still severe. She turned back to the body of the porter. She straightened the edges of his uniform and smoothed out the wrinkles. Then she grabbed her handkerchief out of her pocket and daubed away the blood smear along the neck. She brushed her hands over his eyelids, shutting away the unfocused blue irises.

Then, with the body balanced in her arms, she cracked open the door—but the hall was empty. They both knew it. He heard her pull the body down the passage, to what he presumed was a closet, and then there was the muffle of the body being settled. Finally, he heard her whisper, "Jasper, let's go."

Nevertheless, he stood still for a moment.

Because he was staring at the small bundle on the floor. It was what Alice had been carrying as she walked in—not that he'd noticed at the time.

He bent down and picked it up.

A spare porter's uniform.

He set it down on the bench. With weighted steps, he went to follow his wife.

v^v^v

The day before Bella was supposed to come over, Edward marched into the library and decided to give Jasper a warning.

"Give her space, Jasper. I don't want to have to deal with a single wayward thought in your brain—I want you to meet her—but I swear if you even have a single thought—"

"Edward—back off—he's not going to do anything," Alice interjected, skipping in front of Jasper.

Edward gave a dark chuckle. "She smells good, and she's has no inner sense of balance. I don't want any—"

"You, Carlisle, and I will be there. Besides, Jasper does not want to drink Bella. Do you, honey?"

Jasper shook his head at Edward with a half-grin. "No way. I'll be sure to hunt. Besides, you're easier to put up with when your girlfriend's around." He gave Edward a light punch in the shoulder.

Alice covered her mouth to hide her smile.

Edward rolled his eyes at the both of them. "Fine. I was only being cautious."

He stomped off.

v^v^v

The first words Alice had ever said to Jasper were, "You've kept me waiting."

Upon later reflection, Jasper had realized that if any other person had said such words to him, he would have assumed the worst—bristled—possibly even left the diner. Heck, even if he'd known his companion well enough, at the very least, he would have settled for a nasty comeback, but with Alice it was always different. There was never any hint of expectation, of control. Her aura was simply... happy, playful. It was loving.

_She loved him._

He'd felt that, the moment he met her, as pure as anything. Like air. Just as clear.

It was absurd, and yet it drew him in like nothing he had ever known—because Alice didn't care about the macabre lacquer of his past, just like she didn't care about the scars that marked a webbed geography about his flesh, or the fact that the way forward for him seemed to be a loop back to where he was the day before, as if he was twisted in a web of his own making. Alice was about potential. The road ahead, wide and bright.

He remembered when he first asked Alice about her talent. They were in a hotel in Philadelphia. They had been together less than a week.

"You see multiple paths? You know what's going to happen? What about choice?"

"Yes. Sometimes. It depends."

Jasper laughed, leaning back onto the bed and pulling the pillow up around his ears on either side.

Alice pulled herself up and leaned down over his side. "Some things are so clear—like the weather, the stock market, you, the Cullens—but others are... complicated," she finished, her nose squishing up as she pursed her lips.

"What about us—right now?"

She squeezed her eyes shut, her brow furrowing as if in intense concentration, and then she held her hands out on either side, fingers pressed as if in formal yogi meditation or something, as she hummed in a teasing tone, "Jasper Whitlock will have at least one orgasm, possibly two if he pleases Alice to her—"

She didn't get to finish because Jasper pulled her onto him and kissed her. Alice laughed into the kiss, and Jasper's hands slid down her back, pulling her tighter against him as her tongue traced along the sharp edges of his teeth. She responded back with equal vigor, swinging a thigh over his leg and pushing with her kiss, pressing his head into the pillow, but not one to be conquered, he pushed back. He flicked his tongue against hers, then pressed with only a gentle nudge of the pink tip, but then he relaxed and wondered at how the taste of his venom mixing with hers somehow made it all the more sweeter.

What made the kiss finally end was when Alice raised her arms so that Jasper could push the sheer fabric over her hips, past her breasts, and off her arms.

While Jasper had moved slowly, Alice did not. He had teased her, and now Alice responded with haste. She used her teeth on his top shirt button. Her fingers snapped the rest.

When she went for his pants button, he caught her hands. "Gentle with the pants button," he cautioned.

She gave him a fixed stare, and then grabbed both sides of the seam, and she ripped those, too.

Jasper yelped. "Jesus-fucking-Christ, Alice!" But his complaints didn't last all that long, because then Alice's impetuous passions crashed down upon him at the same time that her hard thighs did, and Jasper gave a long groan as he felt her, tight and slick and clamped upon him.

"Shsshhit," he hissed, and then he grabbed her, and his hands were pushing her ass up and down, moving her up and down upon him.

"That okay?" Alice breathed out.

"Ehhsgood," Jasper blurted through the strain, his hands gripping her harder and moving, and she opened her mouth to make some other remark but then Jasper slammed her down harder, and she rotated her hips, and they both moaned.

"We don't always have to go at a gallop, you know," Jasper murmured between pants.

"I didn't want to know what would happen..." she replied through gritted teeth. "I just wanted to _feel_."

... _that would explain—a lot._

"Got it," Jasper replied, holding Alice's hips still for the moment.

She gave him a wry smile back. " _Yes_ —now, hush up. Move."

And then, well, _talking_ was not an option, for they were lost to the feel of it, and it was such that Alice's lust was feeding Jasper's lust, and Jasper's lust was feeding back into her, and they were both panting, despite the fact they needed no oxygen, and Alice's head was arced back—her eyes unfocused, but this time she wasn't looking at the future. She was so _now_ , and her breasts were pert and luminous despite the shoddy light of the room, and she felt... The moist, ungodly coaxing pressure generated by it was making Jasper almost lose his rhythm.

He knew that she was close when he felt her go rabid-red above him, pulsing in sequence like blood through the organs of the heart, then twisting and untwisting, and Jasper locked onto the beat of it, and then they were both loud and off-key in the throes of it as grunts turned into long-held growls and then " _fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fucks_ " that were sang out until they cut off.

One long moment of silence.

Then Jaspers fingers found the shape of her arms, and he gave a lazy pull to drag her mouth to his again. Her lips were loose and soft when theirs met, and she snuggled tighter to him, both of them basking in the afterglow of the moment—which was all the more heightened by Jasper's cloud of peaceful bliss that suffused the room.

An hour later, they were still clutched about each other, and Alice said, "We can go slower... this next time." Jasper saw her brow furrow, as she was already looking ahead.

"No plans. We can go however we want."

"But sometimes I like plans." Alice nodded.

"They won't bore you?" he asked.

"Not if the path is new... it's not like I can taste or smell or feel in my visions—I just hear and see."

This was an incentive for Jasper to lick Alice's ear.

She giggled. "And since everything has been new..."

That stopped Jasper. They'd met, it all had been so immediate, and he'd never even asked... " _Everything_ —have you ever—I mean been with—?" He made himself close his trap.

Nevertheless, he could tell that Alice understood. She shrugged. "I don't know. Don't remember."

Jasper nodded, and then tensed, realizing he was about to enter into a conversation that he was not in any way looking forward to. Talking to Alice about Maria would be...

Alice laughed. "It's okay. I already know what you would say if I asked you."

He felt something akin to panic. "None of it meant anything before—not like this," he told her. He sent the force of his meaning, at her—wanting her to know how much he meant it.

Alice watched him for a minute, calm as ever. Then, she leaned down to look into his eyes. "I know. Just like I knew your name before I met you."

He smiled, and then he asked, "Alice, if you woke up and didn't remember your past, how did you know your own name?"

"I just knew it."

"What about your last name?"

"It will be Cullen." She sounded so sure.

Jasper gave her a rather sour frown. "Well, I was going to lend you mine, but since you've already promised that you're going to—"

Laughing, Alice cut him off. "I can have more than one last name."

"Really?" he asked.

However, Alice's face had twisted into a pout. "Was that a _proposal_? Because if it was..."

She would want something more elaborate—he knew. Probably in Paris with a harvest moon and string quartet in the background—which he wasn't ready to supply at this exact moment, so he avoided the conversation by kissing her again. By the light in her eyes and the way she laughed again, he almost wondered if Paris was exactly what she was seeing.

Either way, it didn't matter. Their limbs entwined, smooth and hard, and they both forgot about everything.

v^v^v

Jasper knew for a fact that Alice was not going to kill Bella.

Edward also knew this, and oddly enough, Bella seemed to be aware of this—which sent Jasper wondering about her mental state...

However, Esme and Carlisle did not know this. They had no telepathic or empathetic tools to know.

Thus when Alice slid down the banister, greeted "Hi, Bella," bounced over to kiss the girl's cheek, and told her, "You do smell nice, I never noticed before," Jasper felt obliged to douse the room in a veritable swamp of calm—and save Carlisle and Esme from his wife's gregariousness.

Bella noticed him. She scanned him over with a touch of apprehension, but it was strange. He didn't feel the prickling sense of fear that he normally felt from humans. Instead, he felt her _shyness_ —not her fear. She was nervous about meeting him.

_Interesting._

And yes, he noted, she did smell good.

 _"_ Hello, Bella," Jasper greeted her. He gave a quick dip of his head. He did not extend his hand. He wasn't missing the protective glare that Edward was giving him out of the corner of his eye. He was sure that the thoughts on her smell had not helped all that much in that area.

"Hi, Jasper," Bella returned with an easy smile, and a hint of— _deduction_ —Jasper thought. She knew that he was using his power, which meant that...

 _You're a big mouth_ , he thought at Edward.

Edward gave a twitch of a shrug, though his eyes never left Bella, who was exchanging pleasantries with Esme.

_She's not afraid of us, for whatever reason. She's just shy—which is still screwed to high hell. She should be shaking in her boots with five vampires in such proximity._

Edward spared him a glance then and gave him a quick nod, one that was filled with a mix of emotions: fear, frustration and also...

 _You're in love with her?_ Jasper asked himself as much as he posed the question Edward.

He felt Edward's tension at his words, a quaking rawness, but then Edward snapped his gaze at Carlisle—who was focused on informing Edward about the possible arrival of the nomads Alice had seen in her vision, earlier that morning

After which Edward was the one half-shaking in his boots.

Even Bella noticed, but then she focused on the piano in the drawing room.

Esme leaped on that—it allowed her to play hostess—and then Edward was seated at the piano bench and playing, and everyone was listening until Alice had some vision or another—some romantic moment, and then she sprung into action, and they all found themselves being soundlessly herded out of the room.

"Is he going to change her?" Jasper asked Alice once they were alone in their room.

Alice huffed and crossed her arms around her as she plopped herself in an armchair. "He should, but..."

"He won't," Jasper finished, and then he shook his head. "What a dumbass."

Alice gave a slow nod in reply. She was still listening to the piano notes from downstairs. "He doesn't want to..." and here, it seemed she was searching for the right word. "He doesn't want to _subvert_ her—her humanity, mostly."

"Well, better that than kill her."

Alice shook her head. "I never see him drinking her anymore."

"You see her as one of us."

"I do—but then I don't. She wants it, but he wants—well, he's Edward."

Downstairs the song ended on a high, sad note, and with the gradual elevation in Bella's heartbeat along with the music, Edward's emotions had begun to shift, to the point that Edward's pants were now feeling rather _uncomfortable_...

"Who gets off on tragedy, apparently," Jasper muttered in disbelief.

Alice gave him a worried look. "I don't want to know. Do I?"

Jasper shook his head. "No, not as much." He'd tell Emmett later though...

v^v^v

They'd been together for more than a year when Alice sprung from a willow and tackled Jasper.

Jasper was tracking a coyote pack. They were in Illinois, south of Chicago and following the river up toward the city. It was the time of year where the neon green buds peaked out from last year's compost and migrating birds packed the trees, disturbing the forest with their obnoxious chirping.

It was when Jasper was distracted by one such white shit-laden tree full of sparrows that Alice tackled him.

Because he was hunting, Jasper's reactions took over, and as her heel came for his chest, he grabbed for it while twisting his body out of the line of fire—but then his hand never caught her heel—because Alice's slipper was gone before his fingers gripped, and she was flying up, a slash of lavender among the dark branches overhead, and she had both hands on an overhanging branch and swung in a 360 degree circle before letting go and landing in a neat y-stance, with arms held to the sky and a triumphant smile on her face.

Jasper was no longer in attack mode at that point, but he was pissed as hell. "You could have—I could have—What the fucking hell were you thinking?" he demanded, stalking towards her.

His anger seemed to bounce right off her. "I _fought_ you!" Alice declared with unabashed glee.

Alice's joy had its effect. Jasper tried to stay angry, but a smile leaked into the corner of his mouth, and Alice knew that she had him. He sighed, shaking his head in partial defeat, and asked, "So what the hell was that?"

"I wanted you to fight me," she explained, still ignoring his anger.

"Couldn't you just _ask_?"

"I could have, but it wouldn't have worked." Alice gave him another blithe smile.

"Perhaps because I have no desire to fight the woman I love."

"That is so boring."

"Yes, it is. My _apologies_ ," Jasper muttered. "But no—I will not fight you. Besides, we need to hunt." And with that, he cast a line of hunger at her, which caused her to swallow and clutch her throat. Job done, Jasper sniffed the air, the scent of the coyotes was headed north, but there was another scent of deer from the northeast.

He set off.

Alice shadowed his steps. "Just so you know, I'm going to keep attacking you until you teach me," she informed him as they chased the trail.

"Deer or doggies," Jasper asked, ignoring her threats.

" _Coyotes_ ," Alice replied with a roll of the eyes. "There's an over-infestation here, anyway." She was trying to sound natural—flippant, even, and yet he could feel the calculated tilt to her alleged "unconcern."

"I have your number. You're not going to catch me off guard again."

Alice spun to face him with crossed arms, while at the same time, her eyes went unfocused, and she searched the future ahead. Jasper waited. At first, he felt spikes of interest, followed by coils of disappointment, but then he felt the pulse of hope—anticipation—and then Alice had the facade of nonchalance back in place.

"Alice," he warned.

"There's a circus ahead," she informed him with clasped hands. "—and one of the trapeze artists broke their ankle in the last show— _but_ if we show up..."

Jasper groaned. "No. No fucking way are you getting me to swing on a chopstick in a room full of humans."

Alice ignored him, grabbing his hand and pulling them both forward. "My costume will be alternating shades of blue strips, with a tartan border, and a satin skirt."

"I don't care what the hell—"

"The skirt fails to cover my entire ass."

"Which you apparently want to show to a room full of strangers."

"If you'd come too, it'd make me so, so happy."

"No. That is a debt that could never be reconciled."

Alice grinned. "Oh, but I think I could." Parallel twists of mischief and desire began to lace around her.

Jasper watched her through narrowed eyes. "How is that?"

"Well…" She leaned in close, and her lips brushed the lobe of his ear as she whispered. "For starters, it involves a lion, a whip, and a high wire…"

Jasper could not help it. He was all ears.

v^v^v

The next time it happened, they were hunting again. It was early morning, and they were wading through knee-high snow drifts and idly tracking a moose's trail as the snow continued to feather down from the white sky.

In front of him, Alice stiffened.

Jasper opened his mouth to ask at the same time that the scent breached his nasal receptors.

 _Blood_.

He plunged ahead, mind out of body as the line of red velvet strung him forward. He had only a passing awareness of the snow exploding around him as he ran, of the thin branches snapping as he smacked through them—and then—her.

But it was too late, then. She caught his shoulder before he could duck.

Snarls erupted in the ditch, as she swung him around, her boot smashing into his thigh and sending him sailing down the slant of the ditch and into a deadened oak at the bottom.

Which was about the time he realized what had just happened.

Spitting a twig out of his mouth, Jasper growled.

Alice's face maintained its self-satisfied smirk, crouched as she was at the top of the ridge.

"Did you know beforehand?" he asked.

"About the human?"

"Yes."

"Maybe."

"Maybe means yes," Jasper muttered.

"A little yes." She pinched the air to show just how little.

Jasper kicked the snow. "This isn't going to stop, is it?"

"I told you it wouldn't."

"Fine."

"Fine?"

"Fine. Now bend your knees."

He felt Alice's entire body light up with excitement. "And what else?" Her eyes were huge.

"Your advantages are your speed, your size, and your talent. You need to stay as small as possible. Defense first. Offense only when you know you have the full advantage to strike. Now, turn your body at this angle." He demonstrated, pulling his leg back behind him.

Alice mirrored his stance. "And what about you? What are your advantages?"

He leaped up the ridge of the ditch. He pushed her back and into the snow before she could stop him, and then he grabbed her chin, pushing her face away as he leaned close to her ear, and asked her, "Do you have to ask?"

She did not ask again.

v^v^v

Alice didn't look up from the magazine in her hands. "Also, there's going to be thunder tonight—on the south side of the mountain, mostly, but it'll hit the field."

Jasper went to the window and examined the sky. He could hear the flutterer of the wind off the glass—it was from the north now, but that would change. The sky was its usual grey, but night was approaching, and hints of mauve in the clouds indicated the onset of the end of day.

"Baseball?" he asked.

"Batter up."

"Will Emmett and Rose get over themselves and come?" he asked as he returned to sit on the bed.

"There will be no keeping Emmett from a game. Rose will do her thing, but she'll play. She'll probably try to slide tackle Edward, though."

Jasper laid back. "But that's always a given."

"Of course."

But Jasper shot up straight on their bed.

Because on third floor, in Edward's room, there was a burst of _predation_ , followed by the sound of feet leaving the floor. The clamor of weight hitting the leather couch. Bella's airborne gasp.

Jasper stilled himself. Alice did, too.

He half-expected to smell-blood.

But he didn't.

Instead, he heard laughter. Bella was mildly annoyed. Edward was happy, playful even.

_What the fuck?_

"He was only messing with her," Alice explained. She returned to flipping pages.

"But he felt so..." Jasper shook his head to clear his mind. "It's still incautious."

"Fine, go bother them, long nose. You want to."

"Vigilance," he muttered, but then he was down the hall, up the stairs, and standing in front of Edward's door. He wasn't surprised when he heard Alice's footsteps stop behind him.

He held up his hand to knock, before pausing and holding it in the air... on the other side Bella's breathing was elevated—and not just from Edward's attack on her person—there was uncurling of her libido, too.

With an eye roll, Alice called over Jasper's shoulder, "Can we come in?"

Through the door, he heard Edward's chuckled, "Go ahead."

Edward thought Jasper's hesitation was _funny_.

Alice ducked under Jasper's arm, pushed the door open, and charged on in, announcing, "It sounded like you were having Bella for lunch, and we came to see if you would share."

Embarrassed, Bella's face flushed, which seemed to amuse Edward all the more, because he gave them a wry smile, leaning over Bella's shoulder. "Sorry, I don't believe I have enough to spare," he teased.

Jasper needed a subject change. The situation was too bizarre. "Actually, Alice says there's going to be a real storm tonight, and Emmett wants to play ball. Are you game?"

Edward responded with a clash of excitement and apprehension, tensing with Bella in his arms.

Before Jasper could respond, Alice declared, "Of course you should bring Bella."

Jasper shot a glare at Alice. So much for vigilance...

"Do you want to go?" Edward turned to look Bella in the eyes.

 _Of course she's going,_ Jasper thought at Edward. _She's as weird as you are._

Edward ignored him because Bella was concerned about the weather, which was funny. The only time that the Cullens concerned themselves about the weather were the five days a year that Forks managed to have some sunshine—or, of course, when lightning made an unexpected show in the Pacific Northwest.

Alice grabbed his hand. "Let's go see if Carlisle will come."

Apparently, Edward and Bella needed their _alone_ time. "Like you don't know." Jasper shook his head as he followed her out of Edward's room.

Now, they needed to see about placating Rosalie.

v^v^v


	3. Chapter 3

**v^v^v**

**Cowboys Have Fangs, Too**

**Part 3.**

**^v^v^v^**

He couldn't be around humans at first.

Not that any newborn could. Not even Alice. Her first—she killed a milkman wearing a cream collared shirt with blue pin stripes, a Pet Milk badge a pinkie finger above the breast pocket. She said that even with the knowledge of what she would do, she couldn't have stopped, not that first time.

She told him. "I woke by the stink of the river, only to hear the clinking roll of his wagon and to feel the swamp smell replaced by the something thick like molasses and stinging in my nostrils and throat. It was... well, I charged the wagon down. Got him.

"When I stepped back, full and mad and still wanting more, I realized... I screamed, clutching at the sodden rag I was wearing. Before me, there was the body and the broken wagon axle, and blood was dripping from the creamy shards of cracked milk bottles. Candy cane stripes and pin stripes," she finished in a whisper.

She killed the horses, next, she told him. "Because they weren't human, at least, and because they were screaming, too."

Newborns were vampires first—monsters first. The first time Jasper was around a human without needing to kill him was after one of the battles. At some point during the siege of Vicksburg. Jasper only knew which battle it was because of what Maria told him and because he later looked it up in old newspapers. He'd been a vampire for a good few months by then.

Maria led him to the edge of the river valley, where she had to grip his arm to keep him from rushing forward. "You once were a part of this." She threw her arm to the sky, as much as act of dismissal as an act of theater. "But now you are beyond it."

"War?" Jasper asked with a glare. He hated these lectures. He wanted to move. The screams of the wounded tormented while their leaking bodies beckoned.

"No, life. _La muerte_. The war never ends." She smiled, even as her eyes blackened. The ripe smells of the battlefield had begun to affect her at last. "Go," she said, and she released his arm."Just don't be seen," she called after him.

Jasper ran.

The dead and dying were everywhere. The first two whom he found were a deuce entangled in each other. One had managed to get his rifle off and blast the other in the thigh—a nasty mess at such close range—while his opponent had still managed to catch him with a pig sticker between the ribs, a slash on the arm, too. Both of them were bleeding to death. Jasper quickened their end.

The third was a man rocking in a ditch, cold with sweat and rocking while singing words that weren't words with a melody like a spiritual. Jasper continued to rock him as he drank him. Then the man rocked no more, and Jasper, for the first time since the dawn of his new life, found himself to be full.

Full enough to feel like taking his steps like a stroll, instead of skulking through the shadows.

He came upon the man just as he leaped over a derailed pasture fence. The man was ducked low and lying flat on his belly. Even still, Jasper could see the grey cloth tied about his shoulder and his hazel eyes through the thick mask of uneven stubble hiding his face.

Seeing Jasper's profile dark before the moonlight, the man cursed. He lifted his rifle, and Jasper almost wanted to laugh that he would even try... but then the man slammed it back down. "I might as well give 'er up. Cartridge empty," the man muttered, almost by way of apology.

Jasper grinned, watching the man in the darkness, but then he frowned, for he smelled no blood on the man, no injuries. "You aren't hurt, so why're you hugging the mud?"

"If ya ain't gonna pop a slug in my brain, then go boil yer shirt," the man growled back.

"This voice does not belong to a Yank."

There was a pause. "I suggest you duck, then, friend, because standing around like a corn post ain't particularly advisable on a battlefield."

Jasper laughed. "I'm safe."

"Well then, likely is that you're either AWOL, a crazy fuck, a bummer or a..." The man frowned. "Or a scout?" His voice tinged with hope on the last word, and Jasper felt it—his hope.

Jasper cocked his head to the side, thinking on it. "You need to get back?"

"Fuck, yes."

Jasper delayed before responding. He wasn't thirsty. He was a mite bored, really, and this man was—well, Jasper couldn't pick out anything extraordinary about the fellow, except that he was likable, and not a Yankee—and then his excitement—his _hope_ when Jasper said he was a scout, it was pleasant, relaxing.

"I can take you," Jasper found himself promising, surprising even himself.

"You're a genuine scout?" the man asked again, still in disbelief.

"Top rail." Jasper laughed low.

"The Lord's smilin' upon me on this night, then, because I thought I was..." his smiled faltered but then recovered, and he pushed off the ground and onto his knees."Where ye lead, I shall follow."

Simple enough. "Come," Jasper called, and then he turned to lead the man into the night and toward safety.

**^v^v^v^**

When Maria found him later, dawn was nigh, and Jasper was leaning against the rubble of a farmstead well, laying back and doing nothing but watching the distant flicker of campfires.

"Why, Jasper..." She crouched in front of him. "Your first night as a free creature, I'd expected you to still be terrorizing the locals."

"Had better things to do," Jasper replied, "though I am full, be assured." He patted his belly, and then he stood, starting their journey before Maria could ask him to follow her.

Behind him, her emotions were a mix. Curiosity, a touch of sexual interest, and oddly enough— _fear_.

**^v^v^v^**

Jasper had never been close to Rosalie. He'd never been interested in cars like Edward, he was not fucking her like Emmett, and then her interest in history was minimal, so he'd never made much of an effort to affect a change in their dynamic.

He sometimes wondered if it had to do with the way she died. Jasper's own death involved a cold kiss on the lips followed by a cold sting on the neck, and then a whole shitload of hot pain. Nevertheless, Jasper had died surrounded by the patient, if unsettling, smiles of the three most beautiful women he'd ever seen, like angels bidding him unto the night. Rosalie's death was so opposite.

Maria told him that it was always important to create newborns with care. Back then, they liked to stalk the ones they targeted. They would follow them for a week at least, looking for any talents or particular advantages. Maria always preferred that he do the kills, to numb the human with a rhythmic lullaby of sleep, and then nip at the corner of the neck above the heart, pushing venom into the gap with gentle sucks and licks. If Maria did it, sometimes the victim would wake up, and then they'd have to slice the vocal chords until they got the new recruit back to the caverns. The venom would heal everything, but Maria always said it made the newborn a predetermined whiner. That's why it was better if Jasper used his power.

Maria, herself, had died in a horrible way. She wouldn't talk about it. She said she didn't remember—which was possible, but then there was the rage that boiled for days later after a mere mention of her birth into this non-life. Jasper never believed that she'd forgotten.

Jasper liked Rosalie best when she was around Emmett. She was herself—logical, brassy—but she seemed happy about it, then. Still wielding a sword, but without the armor. Fierce but warm.

He liked her the least around Alice.

When they'd first joined the Cullens, he didn't pay much attention to Rosalie. He'd been much more focused on Edward— _hearing his every thought_ —which was _disturbing_. Alice, however, focused on the other two female vampires.

Esme, well, Jasper decided that Esme had given herself to God before the last click of her heel left that bluff. She'd said a final prayer and then fallen from the precipice only to be raised by Carlisle, her haloed savior. Jasper was pretty sure that Carlisle more than just a little enjoyed the quiet worship his wife held for him. He, himself, would have been annoyed by the sweetness, except it felt too nice—tickling like a fresh zephyr across the face—so he settled for reminding himself that Carlisle and Esme were run-of-the-mill cute.

Esme, therefore, was kind to everyone, with a special spot for Edward. Rosalie, on the other hand... Rosalie was not so inviting. She grabbed Esme's hand the second day after they arrived. "Time to hunt! The boys already went!" and when Esme's eyes stopped her, with a glance directed over at Alice, Rosalie stopped, smiled long and slow, and said, "Alice, have you not hunted?"

"Not yet."

"You should come then." Another smile. Fake. The girl was territorial. Esme was _her_ mother.

"Do you want to go to the shops afterward," Alice offered.

"If we have time..." Rosalie trailed off, buttoning up her jacket and spinning the door knob. "I had been hoping to do something with my hair."

Alice opened up her mouth to offer, but then her teeth clicked as she slammed it shut. She'd seen Rosalie's response. It was not... whatever it was supposed to be.

The three women left, Alice leaking a trail of hurt.

Edward had entered the living room not a minute after the door clicked shut. He stood in the center of it, staring at the door, almost as if he could see through it, though Jasper knew what he really was doing was listening to the fading thoughts of the women.

It was unsettling. "I thought you weren't supposed to be playing peek-a-boo in our heads. Wasn't that part of the deal?" Jasper asked.

Edward turned, expression unchanged as he sat down on the couch. "It will get better. Alice knows that. Rose's just being Rosalie, right now."

"Jealous and cold, you mean," Jasper muttered.

"She is jealous that Alice has a talent." Edward nodded. "But also, she's never friendly with newcomers—and Alice can be rather effusive, so..."

"She's like Wonder Woman!" Emmett pronounced, coming down the stairs. Jasper groaned internally—just what he needed—to piss off Emmett. But then, he realized that Emmett wasn't angry, more like... understanding, patient, and perhaps a drop or two annoyed, but not to the extent of being offended.

Jasper's assessment was interrupted by Emmett's asking him, "You're doing that creepy probe thing, aren't you?"

"Probing thing?"

"Yes, probing my emotional temperature—just like Edward snoops in my brain."

"Hey, I don't snoop," Edward argued.

"Do so. You were snooping on the ladies just now."

"Well, it was... important."

"So you only snoop when it's _important_. I see." Emmett gave an exaggerated cock of the brow. " _Well_ , but how do you know if it's important— _unless_ — you were already snooping TO BEGIN WITH!?!" Emmett smacked his fist on the table, probably doing his best impression of courtroom judge.

Except the table cracked.

Emmett gave the table a blank stare. "Oh, that'll get me in trouble." But then he grinned up at them. "Unless no one tells..."

"We don't need to 'tell.' Who else would do that?" Edward groaned.

"I'll blame Carlisle," Emmett quipped, but then his face grew serious again, and he turned to Jasper. "Rosie can be cold, but give her a chance. She's an ice cube that's better melted than cracked."

"Nice analogy." Edward smirked.

"I can make analogies..." Emmett defended with arms crossed.

"Normally, they involve tits and bears. This one was about physical states. Color me impressed."

"I am impressive." Emmett flexed a bicep.

"Not bad," Jasper nodded.

"Wanna arm wrestle?"

Edward was shaking his head, mouthing, "say 'no.'"

Jasper laughed. "Sure. Best out of three?"

Emmett whooped and sped to the back door.

Jasper followed. He was pretty sure he liked his new brothers.

**^v^v^v^**

Alice had a variety of caps and various logo-clad jerseys spread across their bed. Her eyes kept flicking from Jasper to the outfits, assessing her options.

"Just pick," Jasper insisted.

"I wonder what Bella will wear?" Alice murmured, and then he felt her looking, eyes out of focus. "She'll wear grey and blue—so, we will, too."

"And just why are we coordinating with Edward's little human?"

Alice spun on her heel, frowning at him. "I told you that I was going to love her."

"Well, I assumed as much since you said she was joining the family."

"But it's more than that." Alice went back to the bed and picked up the navy cap, fingering the edges. "She's going to be my best friend."

"Thought I was your best friend..." Jasper faked a whine, resting his hands on his fists as he gave Alice a sad look.

She snorted, ignoring him. "I like Charlotte when she's around, but you know... I've never been close to Rosalie—or Esme, even, and I'm closer to Edward and Carlisle than them, and yet... I can't drag you shopping all the time, and well, having Bella around will be good. It'll make a difference." She smiled up at him then, and the smile was asking for reassurance as much as it was showing her tentative optimism.

Jasper smiled back, and then crossed the room to pick up her hand. He folded it into his and then brought her palm to his lips. He kissed it while he watched her eyes. "She'll love you, too," he promised **.**

**^v^v^v^**

He ran toward her.

When Alice froze in the middle of the field, Jasper felt the sting of guilt's dagger bite her chest at the same time that he felt her cool slip of fear chasing Bella.

"They were traveling much quicker than I thought. I can see I had the perspective wrong before," she said.

He wanted to pull her against him, but that would make her feel worse, he knew. "What changed?"

"They heard us playing, and it changed their path."

Which meant that Bella was in deep shit... because there was no tactic that would resolve this. Running her out of there would be like leaving a trail of bacon fry for a fox to follow. Sure, they had numbers on their side, but hiding her in plain sight would be idiotic, too, but then Jasper wasn't making the decisions on this charade...

**^v^v^v^**

When their "guests" arrived, it was in geese-v with one in the front and two in the back, while for their part, Carlisle, Emmett, and Jasper formed the Maginot line at the edge of the field, with Carlisle doing his benevolent Zeus thing, Emmett looking huge, and Jasper sending out his "chill out" vibe.

"We thought we heard a game," the front-runner spoke first. "I'm Laurent, these are Victoria and James." He gestured to the vampires beside him.

Carlisle continued on with the play at etiquette, which was all fine and good until the weather decided to play the jester.

The wind.

Which sent Bella's smell straight at them.

Which caused the sinewy male to challenge Edward for her.

And yep, _la paz se fue_.

What followed was Carlisle and Laurent playing pretend with manners as a guise for white flags, while Edward and James had a silent, claws-drawn-but-not-extended cockfight on the baseball diamond.

All Jasper could do was keep an eye on Alice and radiate enough calm to turn a boulder into a marshmallow.

Publius Cornelius Tacitus had it right, Jasper concluded. _A bad peace is even worse than war._

Then he, Carlisle, and company got charged with taking the Acadian, the shifty red head, and James, the vampire who wanted to eat Bella, on home to the ranch. Their charge didn't last long, though, because no sooner had Edward, Alice, and Emmett disappeared with Bella, when James informed them, "I left our maps at our last camp. I need them. Laurent, you stay." And then he was off.

 _Hunting_.

The red head frowned and made a show of looking put-out; however, she felt... excited _._ Enthralled, even.

Then she was off too.

He and Carlisle exchanged a look, but really, there was nothing they could do, except to get home as soon as possible and keep an eye on this Laurent.

**^v^v^v^**

"He's tracking us." Edward was at the edge, forcing himself not to lash out at Laurent.

Laurent gritted his teeth. "I was afraid of that."

Jasper's eyes were on Alice, her tense expression as she watched the exchange. Her golden eyes were almost quivering, as lost as she was to the mix of current and future turmoil, but then her face turned to his. Anxiety and need for... for him—comfort, love, and balance. She came to his side in a breath, her lips finding his ear. "It's worse than you think. There's no sure path. Meet me upstairs, okay?"

When her toes touched the first step, he was right behind her.

When their bedroom door clicked shut, Alice turned to him. She wrapped her arms tight about his waist, still looking up at him. "I can't lose her," she mouthed, silent so the house wouldn't hear. "Edward can't either."

"You're not going to lose her. We're big, bad vampires, and there are seven of us and two of them."

"There's more than one way to lose her. Her father must be protected—and he can't find out about us." Her eyes blurred again. Fear spiked in her chest. Alice clenched her hands in fists, eyes clenched shut. "We have to get her out of here," she breathed.

"There's a plan?"

She nodded. "You and I are taking her to Phoenix."

 _Interesting_. "Why Phoenix?"

"Well, we ran into James at her house—"

Jasper hissed.

"It was fine. Bella announced to her dad that she was going to see her mom in Phoenix."

"And why are we taking her to Phoenix again...?"

"Because it's a false decoy. The last place he'd expect her to go is where she says she's going. Also, we'll be able to watch her mom that way."

"Not bad—and I get to stay with you. Although..." Jasper's brow furrowed. "Edward's not worried about me being around Bella?"

"Are you worried?"

Jasper paused, looking down at the confident glow of Alice. "Not with you around. Just keep your eyes open for me, all right?"

She smiled back. "Will do."

"Now what?"

"We pack," she declared, and then the drawers began to fly open.

**^v^v^v^**

It was an odd moment when Jasper found himself alone in a room with Bella.

Alone with a human... It almost never happened.

When it did, the other student—or whatever brand of human—would become overwhelmed by his or her body's reaction to him. He could calm the human, which he often did, but just as often, he let the sweaty idiot leave. It was easier that way.

Everyone else had left. Alice was out starting up the Mercedes. This was how he found himself alone with Bella. He made sure to put a few meters in between them and to monitor her movements in a clinical fashion. He didn't want to be taken by surprise. That would be bad.

He expected Bella to back away from him, too, but as before, she didn't notice his otherness, the way other humans did. Instead, she felt guilty, and more... there was a lack of confidence, a sense of inadequacy—of longing and shame, as if she wanted to touch something but couldn't. Like she shouldn't dare. She wasn't worth it.

It was suffocating.

He parted his lips to speak, but then hesitated. It wasn't his business... but then her longing was so thick, so he told her as gently as he could, "You're wrong, you know."

She hadn't expected him to speak. Her head shot up. Her eyes went big. "What?" she asked.

"I can feel what you're feeling now—and you are worth it."

She shook her head. With too much force, he thought. "I'm not. If anything happens to them, it will be for nothing," she argued.

"You're wrong," he repeated. He mustered a smile.

Outside the door, he heard Alice. She had stopped and was listening to them from the step. He could feel the slow breaks of her happiness against his skin. It hugged across his chest.

The comfort of it was still there even after they were rolling out of the drive.

**^v^v^v^**

He and Alice followed the Bow river north of Calgary until it curled to the northwest. There, they'd stopped, because as the sky was slowly darkening and the city lights were fading into a halo on their backs, the theater in the sky was just beginning.

It began with the sense of the sky shifting, clouds engaging in shadow play—but the sky was clear, the stars evident, and then the color entered the canvas. At his side, Alice released a low gasp. Jasper laughed because it was the third time they had come to the see the Aurora Borealis since arriving in Alberta, and that didn't even count the times Alice had seen it through her visions—and yet Alice still gasped.

The colors were green tonight, twisting helices that went from thick ribbons to watery, twisting reeds. At his side, Alice was swaying, leaning with the to and fro of the lights, eyes transfixed and a mix of starlight, snake green, and the base gold of her irises. Then he realized that he'd spent more time watching Alice than the sky... so he turned back, content in crossing his arms and leaning back into the grass.

"It's peaking now," Alice whispered some minutes later. The sky was moving fast, seeming to dip, touch the earth, and lift the soul of it away and into its dark potion.

Watching it with Alice by his side felt right in more ways than he could say. It made him feel normal, because this was bigger than they were. It was as fantastical as vampires—and yet not hidden. It was open and elemental, and it was as if he was seeing a visual manifestation of the planet's emotions. It made him feel small, and he liked that. With a smile, he kissed the top of Alice's head.

**^v^v^v^**

The sky was still active when they started back.

They slowed to a walk when they entered the city outskirts, strolling down the lamp lit streets. Despite the late hour, the neighborhood porches in this part of town were still awash with summertime activity. There were more young people than usual, especially the fucking hippies who'd burned their draft cards and fled across the border, and then local university girls home for the summer and all intent on shucking their Albertan conservatism and lifting their skirts for some Yankee free love. _A bunch of_ —

Alice poked him in the side as he rolled his eyes. She knew his thoughts. She'd heard it all before, and he wasn't holding his irritation in all that well, so... But then, at his side, he felt her stiffen, and he made to ask—but then her fingers shot up to his lips. "Shhh," she hushed.

At the corner ahead. They listened. There was the distant sound of near-silent footfalls. Familiar footfalls. Footfalls he'd memorized in a different life. Footfalls that he could never forget.

Maria.

Jasper had Alice behind him in the next instant. He wanted to run. To avoid this confrontation. For Alice. Alice didn't need to deal with his past. He knew Maria'd leave him be if he was firm. She'd go after Alice, though. He could run. However, that would encourage a chase. They could take the river. But with her so close... "Alice," he whispered, "talk, fight, or flight?"

Alice was silent for too long, he thought. The footsteps were coming closer and closer. There were three sets of them. A fleet, heavy set in addition to a _human_ set. "We stay," Alice finally answered.

...which didn't exactly answer his question, but nevertheless, Jasper gave a single, short nod even as he closed his eyes, wishing he could wish this all away, while overhead, the neon sweeps of the sky across his lids warned him that such fantasy was impossible.

He saw them when they emerged from the tree-lined yard at the far intersection. It was her, a male vampire and a human—a drunk man with an unbuttoned collar and a loosed tie. He was slurring out a song as he tripped along beside Maria. Jasper didn't recognize the male vampire, although by the cut of his hair and the dark angle of his eyes, Jasper thought he must be one of the recruits from Monterrey.

Their eyes met. Maria gave a single, bold look at Jasper, and then her eyes fixed on Alice. Alice glared back, and Jasper felt the twin flares of hate spike between the two. It lasted for only a second before Maria's stance relaxed, albeit because she was focusing on her new tactic. He watched as weight shifted to her left hip, her arms crossing across her chest. "Jasper! It has been ages and ages," she called. "And for us to meet on such a lovely night," she gestured at the sky, "it must be fortune." She winked as she smiled.

"How did you find us?" Alice asked. "We were careful."

"Jasper!" Maria exclaimed with too much affection to be believable. "And just _who_ is your friend?"

"Alice," Alice answered for herself.

" _Alice_ ," Maria hissed back, her smile becoming a line. "As you see I've brought some friends, too. Rico, to my right." She patted the male vampire. "Oh, and then this is..." She trailed off, and then she smiled at the wide-eyed human, who smiled right back.

"I'm Paul."

"Yes, of course. Paul!" She shook her head as if to correct herself.

Jasper's waves of calm were doing little, except to make Paul sway more. "Maria, say what you came to say."

"I missed you. I know we parted on bad terms, but I thought that after a bit of time to clear your mind, you'd be ready to return to us." She was walking up the hill with the male edging along behind her. They were in range to lunge.

"My feelings haven't changed." Then he glanced at Alice. "Well, at least not in your favor," he finished.

Maria paused, and he felt the irritation prickle across her skin. "It's not like I didn't do some basic research before following your bread crumb trail. I heard all about Alice here. It seems she's useful, talented like you. I thought I might invite you _both_ to come back with me." She gave him a familiar glare. "Don't think I would give you a second chance in _that_ way—I have a better man for that job." She smirked at the vampire at her side.

The male hardly acknowledged her words. His focus was on Jasper's movements. Jasper could sense his readiness. He was waiting...

The human broke the awkward moment. "She's pretty, too," he announced, gazing with disbelief at Alice. "So's he..." He pointed at Jasper, looking somewhat confused at his own words, before blinking and turning to look at Rico, only to flit his eyes away, looking apologetic at best.

"Come here, Paul." Alice smiled at him, extending her hand by way of invitation.

But Maria grabbed his shoulder. "No, Paul. Don't." When Paul rounded his head to give her a confused look, she ran her hand across his cheek. Jasper saw the man tremble at the act, both from apprehension and desire. Despite the cold, the sweet fragrance of her breath would be drawing him in at such close range. "Paul, before you go off to play with Alice and Jasper, I need them to answer some questions, okay?"

Paul shrugged, looking ready to follow whatever order Maria would give.

Maria gave him another pat on the shoulder. "So back to what I was saying before... I did some research before coming to look you up, and I heard about your new lifestyle..."

"Lifestyle?" Paul asked in confusion.

"We're vegetarians," Alice cut in.

Paul looked much put out.

"From the color of your eyes," Maria continued, "I can only conclude that the rumors I happened across were true. That you really have played at being a vegetarian."

"I am one. There's no playing at it," Jasper corrected her.

"Oh, please, Jasper. There's no one who relished it as much as you did."

"Some things are more important than diet, Maria."

"Not for you."

"You want to think so."

"We lost Monterrey last year. For the first time."

"So, that's why you 'missed' me."

"It's a good enough reason."

"It's a cold one."

"You forget it's the South. That's where the fire burns, _donde la sangre canta con el calor del sol_."

"I don't know. It might be cold in Alberta, but it's _peaceful_. Also, the night sky is something to behold." Jasper gave a flip of the hand.

"You can't be satisfied here. I've known you longer than anyone. I know you better than she does," Maria growled, ignoring Alice's hiss.

"That's a joke—" Jasper began, but he didn't finish his words because Maria attacked.

Not him, though.

The human.

The white crescent of her nail slit across Paul's throat at the same time that she launched his frail body toward Jasper.

But Rico moved. As did Alice.

There was Rico, the charging bull. There was Paul, the spinning top, drops of blood flying from his neck as he twirled, and then there was Alice—Alice who moved faster than all of them, a dagger in the air, the streak of her dress's white sash slicing through the scene. She caught Paul's hand, rolling him out of the way and into the bushes to the left at the time that she yelled out, "Jasper!", and managed a roundhouse at the lunging Rico.

Rico absorbed the kick, only faltering with two crunching footprints into the pavement before leaping at Jasper again.

He feigned for Jasper's left before ducking low and swinging a kick—which Jasper deflected with his own kick—and then avoided Rico's uppercut and managed a punch that caught him across the jaw. The punch sent him flying back, and Jasper chased his opponent's fall, his knee slamming Rico into the curb while his other fist pinned his jaw. Jasper got his arm with a ripping screech.

In his periphery, Maria lunged for Alice.

Rico's free arm snatched at Jasper's leg. But Jasper flipped him, pushed his face into the boulevard grass, and then he ripped, and the head flew and cracked against the iron fence like a canon ball.

Then Jasper was turning, but even as his head whipped around—he felt Alice's confidence, her concentration—while Maria... Maria was all rage. Alice, however... By the time he pivoted and made to leap, Alice had caught Maria by the wrist. Maria had snapped at her neck then, teeth grazing the spiked edge of Alice's hair—but the move had cost her, because Alice twisted mid-air, cutting Maria's legs out from beneath her, and then with preternatural grace, the flat of her palm slammed down between the taller woman's shoulder blades.

Which sent Maria plummeting forward, almost half-crawling in her scramble to get away.

Until Alice's teeth were at her neck.

Then everything stopped.

The only sounds were the brush of the nighttime wind through the trees, the murmur of voices from farther down the street, and then the pained gasping from the bushes.

"He trained you," Maria blurted, her tone a mix of resentment, envy, and grudging respect.

"After a time," Alice agreed, and then her eyes darted to meet Jasper's. There was a smile in them, before she refocused on Maria. "You're going to leave. You're never going to come back. If you try to find him again, I will know, and I will stop you, and you won't be walking free."

Incredulous relief colored Maria's tone. "You're setting me free?"

"It's better that way," Alice muttered, not looking at Jasper.

Jasper let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, only to hold it all over again—the blood from the bushes—it was coming faster now. "Alice, we need to..."

"One second," Alice said, and then she put her lips close to Maria's ear. "Remember what I said. I'll be watching," and then she pushed on Maria's back, shoving her six feet forward across the grass.

Maria turned and stood, making a show of brushing the grass off her skirt. "Well, so long then," she spat. "So nice to see you again, Jasper." And then she spun on her heel, turning the corner of the building and out of sight.

Jasper listened, focusing himself on monitoring her departure, while Alice ran toward the bushes.

He heard her whisper, "Everything was clear except..." She lifted the pale, bleeding man onto her lap, and then she grabbed at the hem of her dress. There was the sharp sound of ripping fabric as she tore a white strip. She looped it about his neck, tying with perfect pressure, but...

Jasper shook his head. "The jugular, plus the alcohol—he's lost too much."

Before him, Alice didn't respond, but instead lifted Paul from her small lap onto the grass, and then, in a small voice she asked, "Can he feel the pain?"

"No, he's unconscious."

"We should go then."

She nodded and stood.

They were almost home when she stopped, gripping his hand and looking up at him.

"What?" he asked. She felt panicked.

"Thank you."

"For?"

"For choosing me."

"Of course I chose you. You'd have known that."

"I didn't look."

"Why not?"

"I would have stopped you, but if you had wanted to go, you should have had that. I knew that, so I didn't look."

"Alice..."

She looked up at him.

"You can always look. Always. Probably better that way, actually..." he joked, smiling and kissing her nose.

She smiled back then, eyes blurry with the gold tints of the sunrise.

**^v^v^v^**

Bella smelled... like a human.

She slept like a human.

She also needed to eat and drink and breathe and use the ladies room like a human. She got upset like a human, too—so he had to calm her a lot. It was a lot to keep in mind and handle, especially she smelled especially good for a human.

The fact that Alice was getting _zero_ on James and Victoria was also not helping.

The only good thing was that Edward was finally coming to collect her, and that way Jasper could relax and go for a hunt as nice and as long as his leisure willed, and he could call his current mission successful. They would figure out the James situation in good time.

This was what he thinking about as he played sentinel for Bella outside the ladies' room at the airport.

Three and a half minutes had passed when he first made himself check. There were sounds of gurgling sinks and flushing u-bends, and the smells... Jasper wrinkled his nose—and yet, he didn't hear the now familiar breath. He should feel her—she was so flustered, tense, she should be easy to... except he didn't feel her.

His phone was flipped open and at his ear by the time he reached the other exit.

He hissed " _shit_ " into the phone at the same time that he heard Alice's gasped reply on the receiver.

"She left us..."

**^v^v^v^**


	4. Chapter 4

**v^v^v**

**Cowboys Have Fangs, Too**

**Part 4.**

**^v^v^v^**

Jasper had always had a penchant for history. Like many soldiers, he discovered that the combination of reading and general discipline tended to keep a fighter out of brawls and other camp mischief. He had little patience for fiction—he put up with enough emotional drivel in his own life. Jasper read for knowledge and guidance. He preferred the ancients, men centuries older than he. Sometimes, as he read about the Gods of ancient Greece, he wondered if there had been a time when vampires had openly ruled over men. He liked dreaming of a world so different from his. A world that used to be _real_.

Once he left Maria and Monterrey, he journeyed without much thought, not minding his path so much as sensing the planet's polar gravity and following the North Star when it deemed to show its twinkle.

Jasper occupied himself by reading. He'd sneak into houses and pilfer books at every new town or train depot. If he was thirsty, and the collection was bad, he'd stop for dinner, too, but if the collection was decent, he'd leave the house in peace. It was an odd sort of logic, but Jasper wasn't feeling much of anything those days, especially not logic.

It was in a large lake manor west of St. Louis that he happened upon the largest personal library yet. He spent hours there, silent on the floor, reading, and sifting through the volumes.

He left with only one. It was a leather-bound copy of the Sun Tzu's _The Art of War_ , which Jasper had read countless times before, but on that night, certain phrases hit him harder than others.

"If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril."

That night was the first night that Jasper realized that he was at war, but he didn't know his enemy.

He didn't know whom or what he was battling.

**^v^v^v^**

They didn't have to tell Edward.

Edward had already heard, having picked the truth from their frantic minds as they searched the airport for Bella.

But Bella was gone. A lingering trace of perfume at the taxi stop.

It was the first time in a decade that Jasper found Edward's talent more of an aid than a detriment. Not that Edward's knowing made all that much of a difference, because Edward's panic, pain, and resulting hysteria shamed Jasper more than words ever could.

Alice screamed at them at some point. "SHUT UP! I NEED TO SEE!"

Everyone in the airport terminal heard. They were turning to stare at the family—which was never good. The Cullens stood out enough as it was.

Emmett had just left for the rental car counter when Alice's eyes shadowed over, and Edward flew to her. He clamped both hands around her shoulders, his eyes boring into hers as whatever vision she was having played out between them.

And then, with no sound, no whisper, and no grunted explanation—Edward ran.

**^v^v^v^**

Before Jasper could assess the scene, Emmett had charged at James, which meant Jasper would have to swoop in and prevent him from losing an arm, but more important, he realized—as his nostrils flared—was the scent of Bella's blood in the air.

Relieved of his opponent, Edward was already flying towards her, along with Carlisle and Alice—and Jasper almost broke from his strike to pull Edward back—to snap him from out of the clamp of his senses—but then Jasper felt him...

The thirst wasn't there.

Jasper was snapped back to his original task when Emmett really did almost lose an arm as he tried to tackle James, so Jasper somersaulted forward, sliding around Emmett's crunching hulk and then around James, catching James's neck before it swung toward Emmett, and then Jasper had him braced on the floor. He told Emmett, "Hold him here and here."

James thrashed. His red eyes rolled at Jasper. His fury made Jasper's job easier.

Jasper caught him at the back of the neck, pulling as his teeth cut, and then the snapping jaws bounced and rolled toward the wall, the effect enhanced by the line of studio mirrors.

"Get the arm, Em. I got the leg."

In the corner of the room, Alice and Edward were arguing while Carlisle tended Bella's wounds. Jasper didn't even know what the argument was about—but he concentrated, letting his relief and trust and unconcealed love fill the room.

It was odd, then, when Edward pressed his lips to Bella's skin. Jasper's own thirst flared.

But then Alice was at his side. She kissed his lips, even as she wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were watching Bella's tortured form. Then, she was pushing him toward the corner, where Emmett was also looking ill-at-ease with the scent of flowing blood.

"Burn the place," Alice told them.

**^v^v^v^**

Alice watched James's video alone the first time.

When he got to watch it, she sat in the recliner to his left with her knees pulled up to her chest and her eyes barely peeking out over them. Then Jasper realized that she was wearing sweat pants.

That should have been his first clue.

She watched the video five more times that afternoon. At first, he felt her. When they first watched, when James hit Bella, Alice's spine ripped with rage. When he mocked Alice's beginnings, he felt more anger—and then grief. But after a time he felt nothing.

She watched it, and she was numb and blank and...

_No._

"Alice." Jasper knelt at her side. "You need to talk to me."

She turned to him, her face as blank as before he'd asked. She spoke as if he'd said nothing out of the ordinary, "Bella gets out of the hospital tomorrow. We'll go home then. Things will go back to normal." She returned her chin to her knees. "Edward will be happy."

She said those words without any sense of them.

"Alice, we need to talk about this."

A flutter of annoyance cursed her small form. She stood, tilting up the edges of her mouth as if she meant to smile. "I'm going to hunt," she said.

She left.

**^v^v^v^**

Back in Forks, Bella was over at the house every day.

Jasper tended to stay away, but then, he couldn't, really. Alice always seemed to be around Bella. She was coaxing her into shopping or doing her hair.

Edward laughed like a fool at the smallest thing Bella did. Bella could _eat a taco_ , and it was like the piñata of Edward's "happy" popped, and that sweet debris was sent flying all over the room, and even if Jasper was intellectually resigned against it, part of him was already down on the floor scooping up the candy and confetti.

Alice laughed because she saw that it would be better if she did.

Jasper wanted to scoop her up, too—but he couldn't. Not yet.

**^v^v^v^**

Bella was sitting in the kitchen one afternoon when he walked in. He jumped back five feet because he wasn't expecting her there—he'd been lost to his own world.

It would seem that Bella had been chomping down a turkey sandwich, for when Jasper startled her, she took a bite that was too big.

Her eyes bulged, and her hand shot to her throat.

Jasper stood there, paralyzed.

But then Bella gave one grand hack, and whatever sandwich ingredient that had been obstructing her airway, dislodged, and with tears prickling at the corner of her eyes, Bella scooped up the glass of milk and chugged it down. She set it down with a gasp and then sat there for a moment, eyes closed and taking long breaths. Then she looked up at Jasper.

He didn't know what he expected her to say, but it wasn't what she said.

"Edward should really change me, huh?"

Jasper laughed in spite of himself. "Sorry about startling you."

"Seems I startled you too."

"You did... actually." Jasper frowned.

Bella appeared to be studying her sandwich, as if assessing how best to take the next bite without dying, but she felt _concerned_. "You were worrying about Alice?" she asked.

Jasper shrugged, going to one of the cabinets to get the scissors for which he'd originally come to the kitchen. "Noticed, did you?"

Bella poked at her sandwich. "I think she'd thought it would be something better."

Jasper sighed, before muttering, "Romantic notions of humanity..."

"Do you think I have romantic notions of vampires?" Bella asked, looking up at him.

"Yes."

"I see." Her brow puckered, but then she turned thoughtful again. "Well, only time and _experience_ will fix that, I suppose..." She frowned in the direction of the woods—where Edward had gone to hunt, no doubt.

"Yes," Jasper agreed, trying not to scoff. "Time."

**^v^v^v^**

At dusk, he was up on the mountain with Emmett when he got her text message.

_The stone building at 890 West Battery. North side of Seattle. x/Alice_

Jasper wouldn't have thought anything of it, except...

Alice had kissed him the night before.

She had grabbed his hand, and then pressed up on her tip toes, giving a quick brush of her lips against his. As her lips drew away, her eyes were so out of focus that they rolled to the far left, going mostly white. She'd smiled then. A weak smile.

It was something.

"Oooh, it's nookie times?" Emmett was watching him from a boulder. He had a dead moose in his free arm. He always held onto his dead kill for much longer than necessary. Jasper had still yet to explain it...

"I don't know," Jasper answered—and _he really didn't_...

Emmett shook his head. "When your lady gets the call of the wild, man, you don't hesitate—you hunt that trail down before she decides you're in the dog house again."

Jasper raised an eyebrow at Emmett.

"Whatever, man. Go." He dismissed Jasper at the same time that he dropped the moose at the foot of the boulder.

Jasper took off.

**^v^v^v^**

When he reached the building, he was taken aback. There were orange signs and a fence of plastic netting covering the entrance. "Under Construction," the signs read—but the signs were dust-covered and sun-bleached. They seemed more a warning rather than an indication of intent to construct.

Jasper thought about throwing a leg over and kicking the door in, but something about this place stopped him. Why ever Alice wanted him here would not be explained by kicking down the front door.

He went round to the side. That was when he caught her scent for the first time, and yet the smell was faint, registering only because he knew it above all others. Honey crisp and perfumed. Following the trail up, the smell was coming from an open window, the old panes cracked but not broken, and the bottom panel gapping enough to show the means of entry. With a neat leap onto the edge, Jasper let himself through.

The room was empty. Concrete floors and river rock-tiled walls. There were drains in the corners, and that's when Jasper realized that this used to be a shower room. From the crumbled circles in the floor, Jasper could see where stall doors must have been.

He left the room as quickly as he'd come in. The hallway was stripped as bare as the former room—more dusty concrete and a mess of ancient wiring, copper pipes, and cobwebs hanging down from the rafters. Empty twelve by ten rooms sat behind each open doorway. Jasper was intent on her smell. It was stronger, and yet he still couldn't feel her—and yet whenever they'd role-played anything before he'd always felt her. A spot of desire, of impatience—that's what she'd always been.

But nothing.

He found the stairwell. The scent came from below. He sped down.

The cobwebs were thicker, but they held her scent—and the rooms—they were filled with the bent remains of wrought iron beds and stacked benches and mouth-eaten piles of fabric that looked like white shirts—no, not shirts...

Jasper ran.

He skidded to a halt at the end of the hall.

She was there—but she wasn't, as if all of her emotions were sucked into their own vortex. She was sitting on a chair in the center of the room, facing the remains of a boarded window.

At his entrance, she stiffened—even though she must have heard him coming.

She looked so small.

He drew to her side. He knelt at her feet.

She looked down at him. She was wearing one of the mouth-eaten, white gowns. The straps on the arms drooped on the floor. A red stamp with the number 90-893 marked the cuff.

"Alice…"

She just stared back at him.

"This is not you."

Her eyes lowered and then she closed them.

Jasper wanted to grab her and shake her. To make her see sense, but instead he—Jasper grabbed the stamped cuff. He ripped it.

Alice gasped. It was the first bit of emotion. Disbelief.

Then he picked up the straps along the arms of the jacket, and one-by-one he ripped them off. Then he grabbed the sleeves. He ripped those off too. He stuck his nail through the base of the gown—he ripped off a foot and a half of the skirt's length. Then he picked up one of the straps. He looped it around her waist. He tied a bow.

Then he looked up at her again.

Her eyes were huge and bright, and her emotions—whatever had been held in—Alice made a noise that sounded in her lungs, as if half-gurgled. Then both of her thin hands clasped Jasper's face. Another strange sound—like whatever was inside her was fighting for the surface.

"Alice," he encouraged.

She trembled, and then she fell forward, falling into his arms with something between sobs and hysteric laughs and an eye roll—and he held her, letting her shift among every emotion, taking it in and making it his own.

At some point, she stopped. She pressed her forehead against his. She said, "You made me a dress—out of..."

"You can make anything out of your past."

"I know but still, I—"

"No, Alice. _Anything._ That's what you taught me. Even if it isn't easy."

She was still for a moment, eyes intent upon him and unwavering and focused as ice.

"Thank you," she said.

"We'll figure this out," he promised. "Whatever you need. Whenever you need." He kissed her, his lips whispering over hers.

She kissed him back, hard and resilient, like she wanted to know that she would fight—that she was strong—and then she drew back with a flourish and stood up, though still holding his hand.

She led him out the door and into the night, still wearing her "new" dress.

**^v^v^v^**

Edward was taking Bella home. They'd watched _Dracula_ for some reason that Jasper had yet to fathom (he had wanted to watch a western), but all in all, it had been fun.

Bella asked the best questions.

"You've never eaten a baby have you?" she asked him as she stared in horror at the mother screaming on the screen.

Jasper shook his head. "Nah, too small. Like potato chips."

Or...

"He has _three_ brides," Bella emphasized with disgust.

"Boo-yeah!" Emmett yelled, only to laugh as Rosalie smacked him.

It was comfortable and refreshing, and despite Rosalie's nasty streak toward Bella, the family felt closer than ever, and then there was Alice, at his side, curled up and laughing at it all.

Alice left five minutes before the movie ended, but not before giving him a knowing wink.

There, also, was the curl of want that seemed to tickle like smoke across his cheeks.

**^v^v^v^**

When the movie ended, Jasper fled up to his room, only to find a single note.

_I will be on the train tracks at west of Seattle. You'll have to follow my trail to find me in time. The first train arrives at 5:45 am—so unless you want a line of boxcars to wreck, I suggest you be punctual._

_Wear the hat. The teeth. Grab a lasso from the garage._

_You'll need it—and don't bite anyone._

_x/Alice._

Jasper laughed as he picked up the plastic teeth from the dresser. They looked ridiculous on, and he had to hold his mouth just so, so that his teeth wouldn't cut through. Then he put on the long hat, pulling it low.

He smiled at his reflection in the mirror, the teeth looking comical.

He would _try_ not to bite anyone.

**^v^v^v^**

The End.

**^v^v^v^**


End file.
